Guajajara

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A mother with child in the village of Cururu (2007)

The Guajajára - their own name Tenetahara - are an indigenous people who mainly live in the Brazilian state of Maranhão . Their language belongs to the group of Tupí-Guaraní languages . A subgroup of the Guajajára are the Tembé , also Timbé, in the state of Pará .

history

In the early 17th century there were first contacts between Portuguese and French conquistadors and the Guajajára. Around 1650 some Guajajára settled in a Jesuit mission , the Missão de Conceição de Maracu , near the aldeia Itaqui, today part of Viana , in what is now the state of Maranhão. But when they were forced to work on the tobacco plantations by the Fathers, they withdrew into the forests, where they continued to be great and warlike in the area of ​​the Rio Pindaré , Rio Mearim , Rio Corda , Rio Grajaú , Rio Caru and Rio Zutia Ethnic group lived.

Around 1850 the Brazilian government, together with the Roman Catholic Church, undertook a large-scale attempt to convert the Guajajára to Christianity and to "useful work". In 1860 the Guajajára responded with an uprising, killing several Brazilians and retreating into the woods. From 1897 onwards Italian Capuchins attempted a new mission. After a measles epidemic, the Guajajára under the leadership of the Kaziken Cauiré Imana rebelled again in 1901 against the way of life forced upon them. The insurgents destroyed the mission station and drove the strangers from the region. The military suppression of this uprising almost turned into genocide for the Guajajára . This military action is considered to be the last "Indian War" in Brazil. The survivors were now considered pacified and, having large families, the population stabilized and increased again.

The economic development of Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s favored the development of large estates, so many small farmers moved to the Guajajára area and settled there without a clear legal claim. In 1952 they founded a settlement, São Pedro dos Cacetes. With little support from the authorities, the Guajajára resisted this illegal settlement until it was dissolved by the government in 1995.

Since the 1980s, the Guajajára have been threatened by the construction of dams and by local timber traders whose logging teams are active in much of the Guajajára territory.

Known individuals

Sônia Bone Guajajara (2017)

literature

  • Mércio Pereira Gomes: The Ethnic Survival of the Tenetehara Indians of Maranhão, Brazil. PhD thesis University of Florida, Gainesville 1977 (English; online at archive.org ).

Web links

Commons : Guajajaras  - collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Ethnography: Guajajara - Povos Indígenas no Brasil. In: pib.socioambiental.org. Instituto Socioambiental, March 26, 2018 (English, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish).;
  • C. Vergara: Tenetehara / Guajajára. In: Encyclopedia.com. October 29, 2019 (English; ethnography with literature list).
  • Museum collection: Tenetehara. In: museudoindio.gov.br. Etnográfico Museu do Índio, 2019 (Brazilian Portuguese, collection of artifacts).;

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d James Stuart Olson : The Indians of Central and South America: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary. Greenwood Press, Westport 1991, ISBN 0-313-26387-6 , p. 135 (English; side view in the Google book search).
  2. ↑ Virgínia Valadão: Tembé - Povos Indígenas no Brasil. In: pib.socioambiental.org. Instituto Socioambiental, March 26, 2018, accessed November 10, 2019 (English, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish).
  3. ↑ Olímpio Martins da Cruz : Cauiré Imana. O cacique rebelde. Thesaurus, Brasília 1982. ( Biblioteca Digital Curt Nimuendajú ; PDF, 23 MB; Brazilian Portuguese).
  4. ↑ a b c d e James B. Minahan: Ethnic Groups of the Americas: An Encyclopedia. Abc-Clio, Santa Barbara 2013, ISBN 978-1-61069-163-5 , p. 151 (English; side view in the Google book search).
  5. ↑ Neusani Oliveira Ives Felix, Flávio Bezerra Barros, Luiza Nakayama: Uma Territorialidade em Questão: o evento São Pedro dos Cacetes / A Territoriality in Question: the event São Pedro dos Cacetes. In: Revista FSA , Teresina, Volume 15, No. 4, 2018, pp. 47–63, doi : 10.12819 / 2018.15.4.3 , PDF